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Returning from its historic first voyage to the edge of the galaxy, the damaged USS Enterprise journeys through the Taurus Reach, a vast and little-known region of space in which a new starbase has been unexpectedly established. Puzzled by the Federation's interest in an area so far from its borders and so near the xenophobic Tholian Assembly, CaptainJames T. Kirk orders the Enterprise to put in for repairs at the new space station: Starbase 47, also known as Vanguard.

As Kirk ponders the mystery of the enormous base, he begins to suspect that there is much more to Vanguard than meets the eye. It's a suspicion shared by the Tholians, the Orions, and the Klingon Empire, each of whom believes that there are less than benign motives behind the Federation's sudden and unexplained desire to explore and colonize the Taurus Reach.

But when a calamity deep within the Reach threatens to compromise Starfleet's continued presence in the region, Kirk, Spock, and several key specialists from the Enterprise must assist Vanguard's crew in investigating the cause of the disaster and containing the damage. In the process, they learn the true purpose behind the creation of Vanguard, and what the outcome of its mission may mean for life throughout that part of the galaxy.

The annotations notes that the name of Cervantes Quinn's ship, the Rocinante, is a nod to Don Quixote's horse. The class of the ship is a "Mancharan starhopper", another Don Quixote reference, and Cervantes is named after the author, Miguel Cervantes. The ship's name is also an homage to the ill-fated fictional ship of the same name in the song "Cygnus X-1" by Rush as David Mack is a Rush fan. [1]

"Star's Landing", a location on the Vanguard station, is listed on the title page as the location of one of Pocket Books' offices.

Cover art by Doug Drexler. Station design by Masao Okazaki. Background image courtesy of NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STSci/AURA).

Canon characters listed below are linked to the main article about them. Non-canon characters are not linked, but those that recurred, appearing or being mentioned in more than one story, are defined further in Vanguard characters.